Netflix’s arduous magical realism adaptation captures the realism, but not the magic

Netflix Pedro Paramo is notable for several reasons. It is the first major adaptation of Juan Rulfo’s classic 1955 novel – a seminal masterpiece of Mexican literature that is widely considered to be the main influence on the development of magical realism – since Carlos Velo’s 1967 adaptation, which starred PsychopathIt’s John Gavin. The new film is also the directorial debut of cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto, who has shot several well-known projects including Barbie, Brokeback Mountain, The Wolf of Wall Street, Amores Perrosand Broken Hugs.

Written by Mateo Gil, the new Pedro Paramo and a reasonably faithful adaptation of the original novelaccompanying Juan Preciado (Tenoch Huerta) on his visit to the abandoned city of Comala following the death of his mother, who sent him to find his father Pedro Páramo (Lincoln’s lawyer star Manuel Garcia-Rulfo). There, Preciado encounters spirits who tell him the story of the city’s past, and also how his destiny was closely linked to the life of his capricious father, whom he never met.

Pedro Páramo is an underwhelming adaptation

The film fails to capture the essence of Juan Rulfo’s novel

Although Prieto and Gil know how to approach iconic material with caution, they perhaps used an overabundance of cautionresulting in work that does not take enough risks. The Spanish-language film dutifully repeats the novel’s narrative without capturing the spirit in which it is delivered. In Rulfo’s work, the way the story is told is much more important than the incidents it contains, and although it would be tremendously difficult to translate the author’s haunting, ethereal, dreamlike prose into a visual language, Prieto seems not to have bothered. , in neither aspect. of his dual capacities as director and director of photography.

In the novel, the past and present pass by each other effortlessly, as if they were separated only by the thinnest of membranes. Although the film captures this feeling in a few individual shots, for the most part, the flashback sequences are very clearly delineatedwith bolder colors keeping these stories visually separate from present-day Comala and its abandoned, sun-bleached buildings. With the two timelines kept so carefully separate, the result is a plodding melodrama in period costume that’s sometimes interrupted by a bland supernatural tale filled with cheesy, haunted house music.

This is a magical realism film that faithfully captures the realism but abandons the magic at every possible opportunity. By highlighting the former, he fails to give the intentionally exaggerated human drama a pulse that makes it compelling. This failure also makes the two-hour-plus runtime feel particularly crushing. With 124 pages, Pedro Paramo it’s a misstep of a novel that can’t sustain itself for so long, especially when its content is so fundamentally misunderstood.

Pedro Páramo’s film production still shines in parts

The film has a competent cast and crew, despite lacking in other areas

Despite its flaws, the Netflix film was still crafted by a talented group of artists and shines at certain points. For example, The entire cast skillfully handles their rolesthough the film only comes to life when Ilse Salas arrives, bringing a caged-animal ferocity to her role as one of Pedro’s many doomed lovers.

Prieto also manages to create beautiful images in the flashback sequences. While he doesn’t draw on his cinematic experience often enough to move the story forward visually, It is impossible to deny the power of certain images, like Pedro sitting at the head of an empty table, water rushing through an irrigation ditch toward a fallen comrade, or the occasional sparks of otherworldly strangeness that haunt Preciado’s journey.

Strangely, the sound design of Pedro Paramo it’s even better than the cinematography, using hushed whispers, stamping feet, and many other aspects of Comala’s soundscape to disturb and overwhelm. These solid elements keep the film from being a slog, but for the most part, is an adaptation that fails to defend its own existence when simply sitting down to read or reread the novel would categorically be a much more pleasurable experience.

Pedro Paramo It’s now on Netflix. The film is 130 minutes long and is rated R for sexual content, graphic nudity and some violence.